This is INDEED a matter of concern... when disreputable folks start signing
_our_ names to E-mails to politicians and others (who knows, letters to the
editors, and so forth) in hopes of making it look like WE support THEIR
causes...!!!!
One has to wonder how many such letters get sent in our names which we don't
know anything about...!!
I don't recall seeing this specific concern discussed here before (mostly just
the nuisance/cost issue about spam) but what happens when abusers use these
kinds of approaches to influence the direction of governmental lawmaking!!??
Even if legislators learn to ignore unverifiable stuff like this, then how do
legitimate citizens contact their legislators about issues that we really DO
care passionately about?
<---- Begin Forwarded Message ---->
From: David Farber <dave(_at_)farber(_dot_)net>
Subject: [IP] unauthorized mass mailings to politicians...
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 09:06:12 -0500
To: ip(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Reply-To: dave(_at_)farber(_dot_)net
Begin forwarded message:
From:
Date: December 8, 2005 2:18:40 AM EST
To: dave(_at_)farber(_dot_)net
Subject: unauthorized mass mailings to politicians...
Dave,
Feel free to pass on to the list if you deem the following to be
relevant to other IP readers (but please remove my actual email address).
Apparently some group or individual has decided to write Legislators
using information gleaned from an external database to make the letter seem to
be coming from a constituent. Coincidentally, I had been approached
by a friend earlier today asking if I knew anything about three emails he had
received. They purported to be from him, using his normal ISP
address, to the correct Senators and Representative and urged them to stand
against S. 406/H.R. 525. Now I was just cleaning up my mail and see that at
around 20:00 this evening, I also "sent my legislators" the same
message.
However, as I almost always create mail aliases to see who's selling any data,
so it was easy to see this was not from my normal email address, but from
tml-allfreegifts-com(_at_)digitalvoodoo(_dot_)org(_dot_) This has me
wondering how many other
constituents "wrote their rep" today and how often this type of bogus action is
occurring to drive the outcome of a particular piece of legislation.
Content of one of the original messages to legislators follows but a
quick check of the headers show this mail originated from a mailmanager.net
server with a return path address of mail(_dot_)relay(_at_)capwiz(_dot_)com;
both of these
domains are owned & managed by Capitol Advantage (www.CAPITOLADVANTAGE.COM) out
of Fairfax, VA.
Regards,
--Tim
Return-Path: <mail(_dot_)relay(_at_)capwiz(_dot_)com>
Received: from outbound.mailmanager.net (outbound.mailmanager.net
[64.14.114.205])
by mail.geekcq.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id jB811dao004662
for <tml-allfreegifts-com(_at_)digitalvoodoo(_dot_)org>; Wed, 7 Dec 2005
20:01:39 -0500
Received: from localhost.localdomain (bigip1-vlan11 [192.168.11.1])
by outbound.mailmanager.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5C81637E48
for <tml-allfreegifts-com(_at_)digitalvoodoo(_dot_)org>; Wed, 7 Dec 2005
20:01:29
-0500 (EST)
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.411 (Entity 5.404)
From: tml-allfreegifts-com(_at_)geekcq(_dot_)com
Cc: tml-allfreegifts-com(_at_)digitalvoodoo(_dot_)org
Message-Id:
<20051208010129(_dot_)5C81637E48(_at_)outbound(_dot_)mailmanager(_dot_)net>
Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2005 20:01:29 -0500 (EST)
X-GeekCQ-AntiSpam-Information: Spam & Virus Filtering by GeekCQ
X-GeekCQ-AntiVirus-Result: Found to be clean
X-GeekCQ-AntiSpam-Results: not spam, SpamAssassin (score=1.352,
required 7,
MISSING_HEADERS 0.12, MISSING_SUBJECT 1.23, NO_REAL_NAME 0.01)
X-GeekCQ-AntiSpam-Score: s
X-GeekCQ-AntiSpam-From: mail(_dot_)relay(_at_)capwiz(_dot_)com
Status: RO
X-UID: 40756182
Content-Length: 1356
X-Keywords:
T Lyons
<DELETED Full Address>
December 7, 2005
The Honorable Stephen F. Lynch
House of Representatives
319 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-2109
Re: Federal AHPs: An Open Door to Fraud
Dear Representative Lynch:
Like most Americans, I am concerned about rising healthcare costs and the
growing number of uninsured Americans. However, I believe that legislation that
would create federal Association Health Plans (AHPs) ? the Small Business
Health
Fairness Act of 2005, S. 406/H.R. 525 ? is not the answer to either of these
challenges.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that AHPs would actually result in
higher premiums for 80 percent of participants. Experts also predict that AHPs
would result in even more uninsured Americans.
Equally troubling, AHPs would be exempt from important state laws, patient
protections, and other safeguards ? increasing the risk for fraud and abuse. In
the last year alone, I've read that failures of association-type health plans
have left more than 100,000 participants with over $85 million in unpaid
medical
bills.
I believe that AHPs would hurt, not help improve, our nation's healthcare
system. I urge you to oppose federal AHP legislation like S. 406/H.R. 525.
I look forward to your response on this important issue.
Sincerely,
T Lyons
-------------------------------------
Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
<---- End Forwarded Message ---->
Gordon Peterson http://personal.terabites.com/
1977-2002 Twenty-fifth anniversary year of Local Area Networking!
Support free and fair US elections! http://stickers.defend-democracy.org
12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent".
12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.
_______________________________________________
Asrg mailing list
Asrg(_at_)ietf(_dot_)org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/asrg